Saturday, May 8: Three's Company

Laura's mom is visiting this weekend from New Jersey. She asked for some of Mike's fresh pasta for dinner.

Since it was sort of a warm day in Venice, and Laura's mom prefers whites over reds, we decided to pair the dinner with a white syrah. Yes, you read that correctly. It's called Babcock Identity Crisis from  Babcock Winery and it's a mere $15. It has a light strawberry color but it's not sweet at all; it's actually quite dry. It went down very quickly between the 3 of us.

Chicken Piccata

2 large skinless boneless chicken breast halves

2 Tbsp butter, room temperature

1 tablespoon all purpose flour

2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ cup dry white wine

¼ cup chicken stock

¼ cup fresh lemon juice

2 Tbsp drained capers

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

Salt/pepper

Cut each half breast in half to make two large thin pieces. Place chicken between 2 large sheets of plastic wrap. Lightly pound chicken to 1/4-inch thickness. Salt and pepper chicken pieces. Coat each chicken piece in flour.

Heat 1 Tbsp oil and 1 Tbsp butter in a large skillet. Add chicken and cook until golden and cooked completely, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer chicken to plate and keep warm.

Mix 1 Tbsp butter and 1 Tbps flour in small bowl until smooth. Bring wine, stock and lemon juice to boil in skillet over medium-high heat. Whisk in butter-flour mixture and stir for a minute until sauce thickens. Stir in capers and parsley. Season to taste. Pour sauce over chicken and serve or toss chicken in pan with sauce and serve.

Mediterranean Artichoke Pasta

8 ounces spaghetti, cooked and drained

1 clove garlic, minced

1 Tbsp minced onion

1 can (14 1/2 oz size) diced tomatoes, drained

1 cup artichoke hearts; drained and quartered (canned or frozen)

1 can (2 1/4 oz size) pitted ripe olives, sliced

3 Tbsp olive oil

1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Salt/pepper to taste

While we don't normally do dessert, we couldn't resist this Chocolate Cream Pie on sale at Marie Callendar's this week for $6.99. Yum!

Sunday, May 2: Vivere Vongole!

One of Laura's favorite dishes to order in an Italian restaurant (coming in third behind pizza and veal piccata) is linguine con volgole: linguine with clams in white sauce. 


Making the dish at home turns out to be surprisingly easy. The one catch is you need to run out to the store and buy a few pounds of fresh clams (go for the littlest ones). Clams don't keep well or freeze well so you need to use them within a day of buying them. In other words, Mike learned the hard way to not buy the super bag of these at Costco. Go to your local fish market. We like Santa Monica Seafood.

You don't always have to make your own pasta. This is Mike's makeshift pasta rack, a plastic coat hanger.  If you don't feel like making your own, packaged pasta will work OK for this dish, but get something as close to fresh as possible like Buitoni.

Probably the best & easiest pairing with this entree is a simple green salad. We never use store bought dressings. We picked up a bunch of "living lettuce" that is still attached to the root bulb. It's supposed to stay fresher in the refrigerator longer, and, since it's usually difficult to get Laura to eat salad, that's a good thing.

Our butter lettuce salad has sliced tomato, carrots, radishes & avocado. We drizzled with a blood orange flavored olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper. Served in one of the purple pyrex bowls Laura scavenged off eBay. The purple is discontinued, but as anyone who has lived with Laura knows, the more purple the better!

The Wine Kitty recommends....


A Pinot Grigio to go with the vongole we're about to prepare. Normally Laura doesn't like Pinot Grigio because most cheap ones taste like drinking perfume. According to Food & Wine magazine, the Santa Margherita we picked up from our local Ralph's supermarket for $25 is the most popular Italian pinot grigio sold in the U.S. While this wine still has a very fragrant smell, it tastes clean, a bit dry and light, and ever so slightly of apples. This is one white that tastes even better and more refreshing when it's very cold.


LINGUINE CON VONGOLE

3 tbsp. butter

1 garlic clove, thinly sliced 

2 pounds small clams (usually cherrystone or littleneck), scrubbed clean

1/3 cup chicken broth, homemade or low-sodium canned 

1/3 cup dry white wine (we use 2 Buck Chuck Chardonnay from Trader Joe's)
1 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes 

2 plum tomatoes, diced & de-seeded

14 ounces dried thin linguine 

1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves 

Heat 3 tablespoons butter in a deep 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then saute garlic for about 1 minute..
Stir in clams, broth, wine, and chiles and boil, covered until clams open, about 4 to 5 minutes (discard any clams that do not open after 6 minutes). If using whole chiles, remove with a slotted spoon and discard.
While clams are cooking, cook pasta half way. Drain in a colander, then add to clams and simmer, stirring, until pasta is fully cooked.
Toss with parsley and and diced tomato, and serve immediately.

You might also want to have a fresh, crusty loaf of Italian bread handy to soak up any of the sauce that's left in the bottom of the bowl!

Saturday, May 1: Rums of Puerto Rico!

Laura spent the week on a shoot for Tennis Channel in Puerto Rico, the rum capital of the world. One of the sponsors of the episode is Rums of Puerto Rico, who insisted on promoting their rum varieties at all times. Don Q (only available in the US in Miami & NY) is supposed to be the best rum out there.

In honor of Puerto Rican rum, we set out to find a fun, tropical, rum-based dish. While you might be expecting a rum cocktail to accompany the entree, Laura is a little Mojito-ed out, so we're going to start with a small taste of the Don Q Gold, but pair our dish with what we call one of our "house whites" a 2007 St. Clement chardonnay, under $20.

Laura's Caribbean Rum Chicken

2 (4-6 ounce) boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. lime juice
1/4 cup rum
1 tbsp.  reduced sodium soy sauce
1/2 tbsp. honey
1/2 tbsp. olive oil
1/8 teaspoon red pepper
1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro
1 ring of grilled pineapple (optional)
1 lime cut into wedges

Combine brown sugar & ingredients. Mix well. Place chicken breasts in an 8 by 8 pyrex dish, add brown sugar marinade and refrigerate for at least one hour. Turn chicken over occasionally while marinating.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake chicken in the juices for 30 minutes. Remove and fire up your gas grill. Grill chicken no more than 3 minutes each side to avoid drying it out, just to give it a char.  Squeeze lime juice over chicken. Top with either fresh cilantro or a slice of grilled pineapple.

Grilled Plantain
 
1 plantain
sweet chutney
1 small habanero pepper

Cut plantain into long slices.  Dice 1 habanero pepper.  Mix habanero with a few tablespoons of chutney.  Brush mixture onto plantain slices.  Grill on high heat for a few mintues a side.

Coconut Rice

1 tablespoon butter
1 garlic clove, minced
1 small onion, diced
1 tablespoon fresh gingerroot, minced (optional)
1 cup rice, long grain or Jasmine
1 cup water
1 cup unsweetened lite coconut milk
1 teaspoon salt
a few sprigs of fresh cilantro

Heat the butter in a medium sized saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, onion and ginger root and sauté until tender. Add the rice and cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent it from burning. Add the water, coconut milk and salt. When liquids come to a boil give the rice a quick stir with a fork. Turn the heat down to low, cover tightly and let cook for 20 minutes.


Sprinkle fresh chopped cilantro on top.

Bananas Foster



2 bananas
2 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1/8 tsp. cinnamon
2 tbsp. dark rum (or 151)


Sautee the butter & sugar until it's melted. Turn up the heat, add bananas and cook 1 minute. Add rum.  Be careful -  it can flare up a bit. Cook until everything carmelizes.


((You can also do a version of this for desert where you serve it over vanilla ice cream.))

 

Sunday, April 25: Jumbo Shrimp

Our favorite oxymoron

We don't have any running water.  There is a water main break in our back alleyway. No running water in any of the neighbors' homes either.  But, that won't stop us from making a great meal and drinking a fun wine.

We picked up a 4 lb. package of colossal shrimp from Costco today.  The whole package was $55.  Today, we will try to replicate a dish Laura ate in Avignon in the Provence region of France some years ago.  We will start the meal with a stuffed mushroom appetizer and pair both dishes with a Pinot Noir we picked up in Sonoma last year.  It is from B.R. Cohn winery. 

We really enjoyed the tasting room experience at B.R. Cohn and picked up several wines after our tasting, including a very nice port.  We learned that the owner is the manager of the Doobie Brothers and that he started the winery very early in his career.  One of the incredible things they do each year at B.R. Cohn is to host a fund-raising concert (The Benefit Concert for Veterans).  Of course, the Doobies play every year and sometime another band is thrown in the mix, such as Journey.

B.R. Cohn winery, Sonoma Valley, CA.  Award-winning BR Cohn 2007 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir (about $35)

STUFFED MUSHROOMS

6 large white mushrooms
ham
mushroom stems
onion
garlic
butter
white wine
parmesan cheese
bread crumbs

I'm not sure of the exact measurment of ingredients for this dish, because I've made it so many times.  These are very easy to make and it's simple to switch up ingredients in the filling. 

Pop stems out of mushrooms and reserve.  Hollow out center of each mushroom.  (I hold the mushroom firmly in the palm of my hand and use a teaspoon to scrape away a good bit of the flesh from the center.  This is much easier with larger mushrooms.)

Dice the stems, onion, garlic and ham and sautee in butter until soft.  Add some white wine and simmer for a few minutes.  Turn off the heat and stir in parmesan cheese and bread crumbs.  Stir until cheese is melted and breadcrumbs are blended in.  (It should have a sticky moist consistency. I usually add the right amount of breadcrumbs and cheese to make the filling clump into a ball when mixed.)

Put hollowed out mushrooms on a baking sheet.  Fill each with the filling.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes.

PROVENCAL SHRIMP

1 lb. cleaned, deveined large raw shrimp 1 cup lima beans 2 cloves chopped garlic 1 small onion, chopped 1/2 lemon 1 cup fresh chopped, de- seeded roma tomatoes 1/2 cup white wine 1 cup chicken broth 6 tbsp. olive oil Salt and pepper to taste 3 tbsp. fresh parsley, chopped 3 tbsp. fresh mint. chopped 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary 2 springs of fresh thyme Place 3 tablespoons olive oil in large frying pan. Add garlic and onion and saute 1 minute. Squeeze the juice from half a lemon into pan. Add tomatoes, broth, and white wine. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add fresh herbs. Add the lima beans & simmer covered 15 minutes. Remove lemon. Add raw shrimp and cook just until shrimps turns pink, turning once.

Saturday, April 24: Something's Fishy

Happy Saturday!

Laura spent the day overpaying for salon treatments (the roots have started to turn a little gray  -- ugh) and Mike is couch potato-ing it, rooting for the Oklahoma City Thunder, which he picked as a Vegas longshot to win the NBA Championship. He zeroed in on them last year when he saw former Georgetown standout Jeff Green coming into his own (he went 5th in the 2007 NBA draft) and former Texas superstar Kevin Durant starting to regularly dominate games. This is blasphemy in LA since this is Lakertown, but we grew up loving the Knicks (and don't even let Laura get started on her Hoyas), so old allegiances die hard. Needless to say, no tears will ever be shed over a Laker loss.

Laura has been craving a nice piece of fish and we have had our eyes set on a Cakebread chardonnay that has been sitting in the wine rack gathering a nice layer of dust. A 2006 Chardonnay Reserve from the Carneros region. The '06 is no longer available, but the '07 is. It's about $55 a bottle. OK, so we're not doing the best job of drinking our cheaper wines, but this Napa chard is an absolute gem....oaky, buttery bliss. Chill it but serve it a little closer to room temperature to get the full benefits of the wine. As the saying goes, drink your reds a little cooler and your whites a little warmer.

Mike set out to Costco for a tire re-torque and a staple replenishing, with the task of picking up the best looking piece of fresh fish they had available. He came home with a pound of wild Alaskan halibut (about $12 per lb.) This gets interesting because Mike likes his halibut breaded in a crushed macadamia and panko breadcrumb mix, in a style he discovered when he lived in Juneau for 2 years. Laura prefers her halibut grilled. So, here you have it, halibut 2 ways....

Macadamia Crusted Halibut
4-6 oz. halibut (cut in a thick rectangular chunk)
1/4 cup of crushed macadamia nuts
1/4 cup of panko bread crumbs
flour
egg
salt/pepper

Crush the macadamia nuts.  (If you don't have a mortar and pestle, wrap the nuts in plastic wrap and use a rolling pin to crush them to the desired consistency.)  Salt and pepper the halibut.  Roll in flour and coat with beaten egg.  Combine the nuts and panko and roll the fish in the mixture.  Coat the fish and thoroughly as possible.  Pan-fry in medium hot oil.  If the fish is cut in a thick hunk, it's easy to cook in a shallow layer of oil.  Roll the fish every two minutes, as the face down side becomes golden brown.  Two minutes on all four sides and it's cooked perfectly.
Serve with a mango chutney, which can be bought in the international food aisle in pretty much any grocery store. Our is from Whole Foods.

Grilled Seasoned Halibut
large halibut filet (8-16 oz)
olive oil
lemon juice
paprika
salt/pepper

Salt and pepper the fish.  Brush with olive oil and cover with lemon juice.  Top with paprika and let marinate for an hour.  Grill fish to desired temperature.  Our filet was about 10 oz., so it took about 7 minutes a side on a medium-high setting on our gas grill.  Serve with olive tapenade.

Olive tapenade

20 pitted Kalamata olives, coarsely chopped

1 Tbsp capers, rinses, dried and chopped

1 tsp olive oil

1 tsp lemon juice

2 basil leaves, chopped

salt/pepper

Chop and combine ingredients.  Mix thoroughly and refrigerate for an hour.

Vegetable slaw
1 large broccoli flower
1 zucchini
1 carrot
3 large radishes
1 large garlic clove
olive oil
red wine vinegar
salt/pepper

Slice the vegetables into thin strips and mince the garlic.  Steam for one minute to soften.  Combine with the remaining ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly.  Refrigerate and serve cold.

Our growing herb container garden is in full swing.  The picture shows a trio of basil plants, lavender, rosemary, cilantro and strawberry.  We have about 30 potted plants in our garden now, including two tomato plants, a dwarf lemon tree, strawberries, radishes, green beans, pansies, morning glories, catnip and cat grass, basil, cilantro, lavender, rosemary, mint parsley and sage. 

Friday, April 23 Fresh & Frozen: Farmers' Market Meets Costco

This morning, we strolled to the Venice farmers' market, which is a 3 minute walk from our place.  We go every week if the weather permits (and since this is LA, it usually does). It's our best source for organic, local food.  Today we picked up a bag of Meyer lemons, broccoli, onion, zucchini, maple walnuts, quiche, an apple croissant for Laura, a bouquet of gerbera daisies and two cilantro plants.  We spent about $25. We're huge fans of actually knowing where our food comes from, but more on that in a later post.

For dinner, we want to use the fresh ingredients we bought this morning.  The onion and zucchini are easy to prepare on a grill; the broccoli is easy to steam and top with lemon juice, salt and pepper.  We have a few frozen strip steaks in the freezer (love that Costco), teriyaki/honey/salt/pepper for a marinade.  We've got it all.  Steak and veggies it is. 

We dove into our wine racks (we have 3 of them) in search of tonight's bottle.
Laura suggests we go with a 2002 Trefethen Library Selection Cabernet Sauvignon.  We picked this up on our last trip to Napa. This is a REAL splurge for us...we don't normally drink $80 bottles except on special occasions, but why postpone joy?

As we've crafted our first several posts, we've found ourselves wanting to promote our favorite wineries.  We've already mentioned Cambria and V. Sattui.  Trefethen definitely rounds out our top three.  They deliver chardonnays and cabs on par with Napa's best wineries.  Their estate chardonnay ($30) is easy to find in California grocery stores for well under the retail price.  So is their estate cab ($50); we've seen it priced around $35 at times.  These two wines are outstanding every year and are an absolute steal if you can find them at a nice price.  Tonight's wine should be a very special treat. 

So, the dinner and wine are set.  But, we're starting to get hungry.  We decide to open the dinner at 6:00-ish with a shrimp scampi appetizer.  We'll grill the steak and veggies at 7:00.  Dinner plans are set.  We pull one strip steak and ten large shrimp out of the freezer to defrost.

Two hours later, we're ready to prep for dinner.  First step, open that bottle!  We crack the wine and splash two-ounce pours in big, round cab glasses (Waterford by Robert Mondavi) that we got as wedding presents. (Thanks, Pete Lefkin!)  This juice merits the proper vessel.  A few big swirls in the glass.  This wine looks delicious.  A big whiff.  It smells delicious.  It has that unmistakeable nose that screams big, expensive Napa cab.  We toast.  A long taste.  Wow.  Licorice....berries.....black olive???  We pour full glasses.  Outstanding.

Now we're ready to chop and marinade.

Prep work is easy for these two dishes.  Mike pulls the shells off the defrosted shrimp and sets them aside.  He minces a few cloves of garlic and slices an onion and two zucchini into 4 thick slices each.  Laura splashes the steak with teriyaki, drizzles it with honey and tops it with salt and pepper.

Shrimp Scampi

2 tbsp butter

3 clove garlic, minced

½ lb shrimp, deveined

a few pinches of bread crumbs

½ tsp dried oregano, crushed

½ lemon

Saute garlic in butter for a minute or two.  Spread a pinch of bread crumbs in the bottom of two 14 oz. ramekins.  Add shrimp in a single layer in each.  Squeeze lemon juice on top of shrimp.  Top with oregano then butter/garlic mixture.  Top with another pinch of bread crumbs.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 10 - 15 minutes, depending on size of shrimp. 

Honey/Teriyaki Marinade

a few splashes of teriyaki sauce

a few drizzles of honey

salt/pepper

Season steak.  Drizzle with teriyaki.  Drizzle with honey.  Let marinate for an hour.

The steak only take about 7 minutes each side on the grill until it's done to our liking. Now, as we've gotten older, we like our steaks closer to medium rare. That would be a little red and very juicy. If you like your steak a little more pink or well done, grill at your own risk a bit longer. While a fresh steak still tastes the best, don't discriminate over foraging in your freezer every now and then. Offset with the vegetables and the wine, the steak is still extremely flavorful.

Now, it's time to clean up and watch Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story.

See you tomorrow!

Sunday, April 18 - Fava Beans & a Nice Chianti

We took in a ball game this afternoon....Perfect weather for an April afternoon in LA. It was hat day, so Mike was thrilled to get a "This is my town" cap since he loves his adopted city soooo much. But did you know Dodger Stadium doesn't allow parking lot tailgating with beer any more? Boo. We managed to sneak in a Jersey Mike's (roast beef, provolone & turkey) sub and a Pacifico without security ejecting us.

They played "Don't Stop Believin'" at the top of the 8th inning...then Manny Ramirez, who was on the injured list for most of the game,  came up to pinch hit and BAM! 2 run homer to win the game. Yay!

While we had to overcome a little inertia to cook dinner, we had bought these gorgeous looking fava beans at our local Venice Farmer's Market on Friday. We bought a bag and Laura started saying in a Hannibal Lecter-esque cadence, "Clarice! Quid pro quo! The lambs the lambs!"

The truth is, fava beans are a bit of a pain in the ass. You need to shell them from their pod, dump them in boiling water for 2 minutes, then put them in ice water in order to get their skin off. It's a lot of effort for little return.

Our wine is, of course, 2005 Chianti that we picked up for $19.99 at Costco yesterday. It's dry and fruity with soft tannins. Pretty big for a $20 wine. Sabrina approves. Make sure there is the pink label around the neck of the bottle, as that certifies that the wine is officially from the Chianti region of Italy, and not an imitation.

LEMON FAVA BEAN PASTA ALFREDO

1 pound fresh, shelled fava beans
1/2 box orechiette (ear shaped) pasta
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice & lemon zest
1/2 lb. fresh spinach (washed)
1 tomato, seeded & minced
1/4 cup half and half
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp. pepper
salt to taste



1. Cook pasta in boiling salted water until al dente. With 30 seconds until done, throw in the spinach to wilt it. Reserve 1/4 cup of the pasta water, and drain the pasta & spinach in a colander.
2. In pasta pot, melt butter and half and half for 1 minute. Stir in lemon juice, zest & pepper.  Add pasta and cheese. Toss until cheese is melted. Add the fava beans & toss. If the sauce is too thick, use some of the reserved pasta water to thin it out.
3. Plate the pasta and add the fresh tomatoes on top. Salt lightly to taste.

Serve immediately, or else sauce will start to thicken.